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à propos de bottes. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
à propos de bottes, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
à propos de bottes in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French à propos de bottes (literally “on the subject of boots”).
Pronunciation
Adverb
à propos de bottes
- (dated) Apropos of nothing; without connection to anything; by the way, unrelatedly.
1853, Pisistratus Caxton [pseudonym; Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XI, in “My Novel”; Or Varieties in English Life , volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book first, page 62:In fact, the renovated appearance of this monster—à propos de bottes, as one may say—had already excited considerable sensation among the population of Hazeldean.
1885, Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, “Narrative of the Spirited Old Lady”, in More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 86:'That is a strange remark,' said he; 'and à propos de bottes, I never continue a cigar when once the ash is fallen; […]'
- 1892 May 14, “Essence of Parliament — Extracted from the Diary of Toby, M.P.”, in Punch, or the London Charivari, volume 102, 2005 Gutenberg edition:
- Suddenly jumped up; shook fist at back of ASQUITH's unoffending head, and, à propos de bottes, "wanted to know about the swindling companies and their shareholders?"
1907, Porter Lander MacClintock, Literature in the Elementary School, Gutenberg, published 2011:Of course, it is rather characteristic of the folk-mind, as of the child-mind, to heap up incidents à propos de bottes; but as this is one of the characteristics to be corrected in the child by his training in literature, so it is one of the faults which should exclude a fairy-tale from his curriculum.
1921, Lytton Strachey, “Marriage”, in Queen Victoria, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, section VI, page 138:Moody, restless, and unhappy, he wandered like a ghost about the town, bursting into soliloquies in public places, or asking odd questions, suddenly, à propos de bottes.
1925, Aldous Huxley, chapter I, in Those Barren Leaves , London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, part I (An Evening at Mrs. Aldwinkle’s), page 9:Suddenly, for no reason, in the middle of the night, or even in the middle of the jolliest party, she would remember an ancient floater—just like that, à propos de bottes—would remember and be overcome by a feeling of self-reproach and retrospective shame.
- 1952, Anthony Powell, A Buyer's Market (A Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 2), Fontana Books, page 225:
- Analysis at that moment was in any case out of reach, because I realised that I had been left, at that moment, standing silently by Mrs Wentworth, to whom I now explained, à propos de bottes, that I knew Barnby.